New E

I know there was a post in the Technical Forum on this same issue last year, describing the same symptoms as mine, but the originator had a C230 and I wasn't sure if anything on the E was different.

Almost verbatim of a reply to the other post, after cruising around passively, when I punch the accelerator there's a very noticeable lag in throttle response and the car just doesn't go. Twice now when I wanted to move out of the way to avoid a potential accident I've barely missed it, because I can't accelerate fast enough to completely get out of the way.

The other post mentioned this is due to the adaptive transmission, which defaults to a sort of economy mode unless you've driven aggressively a few minutes earlier. There didn't seem to be a fix other than every now and then stepping on the throttle to maintain the aggressive-shifting mode. On one hand I wouldn't want to give up the smoothness of the shift pattern in passive driving, but when you want to go you need the car to respond. Does anybody have any other suggestions?

Thanks.

techbike

Annoying, isn't it?
I just flip the gear to "3".
A slightly more expensive solution is to put a performance chip like Upsolute and a K&N filter in your car. I found it improved the response in mine drastically.

EMan

If it's really urgent to get moving fast press the pedal all the way down to immediatley activate a down shift.

If you don't feel confortable pressing all the way down, remember that the speed at which you press the pedal down partially is also detected, try a quick tap down and see if that triggers a downshift.

Regards,

New E

Techbike - Does putting an Upsolute chip in void the warranty?

EMan - The frightening thing is I did floor the pedal! I can get it to downshift by doing that, but the momentary lag is still there. I'm going to mention it when the car is serviced next week, although it sounds like there's no fix (bummer)...

Thanks for responding.

techbike

Well, the selling point of Upsolute is that they back up the info from your original chip and archive it for future recall, then burn the new program into your original chip. In effect, there is no way they can tell; both physically since it has the same #s etched onto the chip, and digitally since the original VIN numbers, etc. are burned in. Even when they perform diagnostics, it's supposed to be transparent. This is what makes it "stealth".
But technically speaking, yes, it would void it since the car has been modified with a non-factory-approved mod.

John Achille

Very good explanation...I have not been in these forums in a while, but if anyone has any further interest in UPsolute, please contact me, always willing to help out.